The US is drilling tens of thousands of fracking wells every year - surely
Britain could aim to reach at least a fraction of that total?

On Wednesday, George Osborne played Scrooge. Yesterday, Danny Alexander gave us his Santa. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury had the pleasant duty of outlining more than £100 billion in infrastructure investment, doled out piece by shiny piece: £100 million for a new prison in North Wales; £2 million for a feasibility study on Crossrail 2 in London; £3 billion more for affordable homes; £10 billion for school repairs. This was not, Mr Alexander was at pains to point out, wasteful Gordon Brown-style splurging, but carefully targeted investment, paid for from the fruits of savings already made.

But while the importance of infrastructure spending is now generally recognised, there was an awkward juxtaposition here. Mr Alexander claimed that the Government’s plan was to unleash “the energy revolution the country needs”. Yet on the same day, Ofgem, the energy watchdog, was warning that the lights are increasingly likely to go out, as more power stations are mothballed and no replacements constructed. If electricity demand fails to fall as forecast (perhaps due to the arrival of the recovery for which Mr Alexander and his boss hope), then there is a one in four chance by the winter of 2015/16 of “a large shortfall requiring the controlled disconnection of customers”. In short, of the lights going out.

Much of the blame belongs, as ever, to Labour, which did shamefully little to replenish generating capacity while introducing environmental measures that hastened the closure of existing plants. Yet the Coalition has failed to treat this looming crisis with sufficient urgency. Mr Alexander yesterday mentioned a British Geological Survey report stating that shale gas reserves are double the level previously thought. But our moves to exploit this bounty have been hesitant to say the least, with environmental groups tying up drilling projects in lawsuits, and communities uneasy at the prospect of fracking.

It should not be beyond the wit of man – or even government – to remedy the situation, for example by ensuring that those sitting on top of mineral wealth get a large enough cut of the proceeds. The latest research from Harvard on America’s shale revolution claims that output there could almost triple, bringing incalculable economic benefits. Britain’s geography – and population density – are rather different. But the US is drilling tens of thousands of wells every year; surely we could aim to reach at least a fraction of that total? Or accelerate the construction of new nuclear plants? Mr Alexander’s electrified railways and high-speed broadband exchanges are all very well, but they – and much of the rest of our infrastructure – are pointless without power.